Alternating fenestration

The Switch Building, designed by emerging architects nARCHITECTs, is a 7-storey apartment and art gallery building located on the Lower East Side in Manhattan. The project’s design emerges from a creative interpretation of some of the narrow constraints imposed by zoning and the developer’s needs.In a reinterpretation of a bay window, an angled front façade switches back and forth, allowing each floor-through apartment unique views up and down Norfolk Street. From the inside, the bay windows provide deep window seats surrounded by warm hardwood. At the rear of each unit, the living space extends out to large balconies, which also shift side to side creating double height spaces between balconies that maximize afternoon light. The ‘switching’ concept extends to the Galvalume cladding panels, which alternate in direction from floor to floor creating subtle differences in shadows and reflections. The Switch Gallery, located on the ground level, has a black hot rolled steel and glass storefront and canopy that opens completely allowing for art openings to extend onto the sidewalk.